Islamic pottery
The term Islamic ceramics is a collective term for manufactured from clay for use and splendor goods from areas with a predominantly Muslim population. During the processing and artistic design of ceramics in Europe was often regarded more as a reducer industry, it is considered in Islamic art as one of the most important art crafts. Stylistically influenced she was by Chinese porcelain that was imported since the 8th century.
The development history of decorative ceramic processing in Islamic culture was often stylistically parallel to the glass and metal goods. Your first heyday the ceramic art during the reign of the Abbasids; later the Seljuk Kashan in Persia in the 15th century and eventually became the Ottoman Iznik in western Anatolia 's most important center of production of glazed Islamic ceramics.
- 3.3.1 ceramics under the Seljuks
- 3.4.1 Iznik ceramics
Research on ceramics in the Islamic world
The Islamic pottery is comparatively well understood, despite the complexity of the issue, which is made possible primarily by the scientific study of the materials used as well as laboratory analyzes for the reconstruction of objects. In addition, the manufacturing process has been rarely described in medieval Arabic and Persian writings, often in the form of scattered anecdotes away from the actual subject matter of the texts. In some cases, the subject is dealt with in more detail, however: to be mentioned here, especially the Kitab al - Dschamahir ma'rifat fi al - dschawahir a book on mineralogy of Khwarazmian polymath al -Biruni from the year 1035, where some recipes for enamels are listed, as well as the tract of a Persian potter named Abu'l-Qasim from the year 1301 with detailed information on the manufacturing process and the materials to be used here.
Since ceramic is a collaborative arts and crafts and the objects were usually not signed, the names of the potters and decorators are known only in rare cases. Some workshops, which earned particularly high regard due to the first-rate quality of their work, however, handed down by name. Due to the inter-regional trade in ceramic art pieces the production plants are often unknown. Archaeological excavations in which ovens, tools and ceramics that were discarded and disposed of on-site due to defects are found, however, can provide information here often.
Forms of Islamic Ceramics
The collective term of Islamic ceramics includes utility and art objects from very different eras and areas that only a very limited extent are sometimes comparable, including earthenware from the early Abbasid period, the chandelier goods from the Andalusian Spain and the fries goods from Iran to the United Seljuks. A more detailed description of manufacturing and design techniques is therefore only temporally and regionally limited.
Islamic ceramics also can be broadly divided into two main forms: tiles, which served mainly as wall cladding, as well as vessels and figurative artifacts that were used as household goods or for decoration. Both craft trades, however, are due to similar manufacturing techniques, the motives and the performing artists are closely linked. The highly variable quality of the vessels suggests that pottery was not appreciated at the court alone, but also lower placed persons were accessible as commodities. However, Finer and quality craft pieces were reserved without a doubt estimated luxury goods and as such only the social elite.
Historical Development
Umayyad ( 8th century )
From the Umayyad period only simple pottery are obtained, which yet the legacy of previous cultures meet in art, decor and form, ie, in particular that of the Parthians, Sassanids and Byzantines. This presents some problems of dating, as in the case of the ceramic finds from the ancient Persian city of Susa. The unglazed finds varying quality and utility purposes are due to cultural continuity often not unique to a specific time. Some Umayyad objects such as a green and yellow-colored earthenware jug from Basra were already glazed. From a distinctly Islamic ceramic technology with independent and original style can, however, speak only as of the beginning of the 9th century.
Abbasid period ( 9th and 10th centuries )
Although unglazed pottery was continued in use and also provided the quantitatively most of the pottery, found but the most significant developments in the ceramic art since the Abbasid period in the glaze instead. The addition of quartz in the clay frit goods, the semi-transparent shards could be fired at much higher temperatures and thereby finer arose. The earliest Islamic alkaline glazes based primarily on a lead oxide, which was used mainly in the production of open panel goods.
The 9th century was marked by two significant and lasting innovations: faience, the Lüsterung. As crucial for these developments is often considered the increasing import of Chinese ceramics, especially porcelain, which served as a model for the potters; However, some of the Islamic achievements go the influence from China ahead or are to be regarded as independent of it. The lack of suitable clay, as well as the technical ability to achieve correspondingly high temperatures during the firing process, however, led to the fact that the pottery was denied the technical capability to manufacture genuine porcelain Chinese style.
The centers Abbasid pottery production were al -Ya ʿ According Qubi in Kufa, Basra and Samarra. Even Baghdad and Susa may have housed many famous potters.
The first pottery
Ceramics were mostly blue and white colored decorations used for the manufacture, as they were equally popular and common in China and, much later, even in Europe; Examples of turquoise, green, brown or aubergine faience, however, are much less common. Instead of lead oxide Zinnfritten now been used, the white glaze and let semi-transparent shimmer and colorize easier. The white engobe was then coated on the porous red shards of earthenware. Oldest products of this technique, which date from the 9th century, was found in the palace ruins of Samarra; probably they were originally from the potteries of Basra.
Were used mainly for open faience tableware and vegetal, geometric and calligraphic motifs. The typical for many ceramics blue staining was achieved by the use of cobalt pigments, a technique that was originally formed in Basra and spread quickly in Syria and Egypt. The pottery from the Abbasid heartland has been copied in Persia and the Maghreb, but worked here preferably with greenish colors. Not infrequently, the ceramic works of art from the provinces while also exceeded their models from Mesopotamia: The decorations produced under samanidischer and tahiridischer rule in Afrasiab and Nishapur as developed on the basis of careful planning using paper drafts, making the calligraphic inscriptions on the pottery much more elegant and stylish safer could be carried out.
Lüsterung
While pottery first appeared only in the form of vessels, gelüsterte ceramic is occupied by the decor of the mihrab of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, which consists of 139 luster tiles, as early as the ninth century in the form of wall tiles. According to written records, the tiles should have been originally supplied to 862 by a master of Basra, however, show up in the motif structure also significant ostislamische influences. Other early examples of luster ceramics were found in Samarra. The technology was originally developed probably by the glass producers - the oldest object is a gelüsterter glass beaker that can be dated with great probability in the year 773. The production of luster ceramics was extremely time-consuming and expensive: the ready- glazed and fired pottery was covered this with a layer of sulfur, silver and copper oxide and leavened ocher, which was fixed by a reduction firing on the ceramic and as a shimmering metallic thin film left on the objects.
The Islamic luster ceramics can be divided into a polychrome and monochrome in one phase. Initially, the potter served a rich palette of colors, towards the end of the ninth century, however, a few shades prevailed, in which the motifs were designed. The polychrome luster ceramics differs from the later monochrome not only by the variable and rich coloring, but also in style and iconography. A characteristic feature is the absence of figural representations that can not be explained by the avoidance of images in Islamic art, as they were used in other areas of applied and decorative arts of the time absolutely. Instead, it has worked with vegetable and geometric motifs that covered the entire surface of the vessels. As decor were particularly widespread especially symmetrical stylized bouquets. With the monochrome luster ceramics, which supplanted the polychrome style quickly, a figurative iconography stopped again entered the ceramic art, and held monochrome outlines of animals and humans now adorned the objects.
11th to 14th century
From the end of the 10th century, the center of ceramic production, especially the production of luster ware, increasingly shifting to the west from there to other countries in Europe began, first in Fatimid Egypt, later to Muslim Spain and. In Fustat potters developed between the tenth and eleventh century a new type of ceramic that is reminiscent of Jasperware stoneware, which is probably due to Chinese influences, and in particular the three-color ceramic ( sancai ) of the Tang Dynasty. About the pottery production in Spain Ibn Battuta reported in 1350 that in Málaga " wonderful gilded pottery " will made that would exported to distant countries and, finally, should inspire the Italian majolica. In Syria, Raqqa became the most important center of the chandelier commodity production.
Ceramics under the Seljuks
In Persia and Asia Minor began with the takeover of the Seljuks a new flowering of ceramic production, but ceased production of tiles in the foreground due to the construction boom of the patrons; Dishes and figurative ceramic played only a minor role. Again, many new techniques for making and icing the goods have been developed. After their location in Āmol named is the Amol or Garrus goods manufactured in sgraffito or pit melting process ( Champlevé ). The decor of these also produced in northern Afghanistan goods was thereby partially scraped off so that the dark red shards underneath becomes visible and a pattern.
Based on these production processes, the usual in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Minai technique developed (Persian, 'email', or, enamel shade '), also rank imprisonment ( seven colors ') called. First, the color was applied to the clay, then glazed and fixed alkaline and finally repeatedly fired at very high temperatures sometimes exceeding 1000 ° C. The procedure allowed an improved delineation of colors and was used for making very detailed and colorful, miniature -like representations about of caravans and courtiers or literary scenes, especially from the Shahnameh and the works of Nezami. Particular sophisticated pieces combined the Minai method with the Lüsterung.
Centers of Persian pottery production at that time were the cities of Kashan and Ray, probably Golestan and Saveh. A premature end in the production of the Minai pottery very similar later Lajvardina merchandise found the production of Minai Merchandise by the Mongol devastation from 1221st (Persian, lapis lazuli ' ) are designed to abstract color and distinct moderation.
Late Period
Among the Ilchanen especially the unglazed, but double basted Sultanabad goods became more important, the artistically oriented to the Chinese celadon ware, but still fell short of their example; until much later evolved in the 18th century with the Gombroon -Ware a comparable product. A common motif of Sultanabad goods are dotted mammals and birds on leaf base. Ceramic mosaics developed initially among the Rum - Seljuks and later the Timurid much further.
Due to the Mongol invasion, however, the Chinese influence on the Islamic ceramics took up significantly; was then especially the blue and white porcelain of the Ming dynasty, which in turn fell to the findings of the Abbasid pottery blue coloration with cobalt, imported in large quantities since the fifteenth century. While the imports of porcelain in the Persian Safavid Empire brought the indigenous pottery production almost to a standstill, it worked in the Ottoman Empire considerably one of the creative development of Iznik pottery.
Iznik pottery
The first known products of ceramic production in Iznik date from the late 15th century and show plain blue underglaze painting on a white background. In the two hundred years, in the bloom of Ceramic Art stopped there, however, came by and by numerous other colors to the palette added: Characteristic is especially the bright red of the so-called Rhodes goods. The style was oriented at the beginning strongly Timurid ceramics, it soon became clear naturalistic. Especially for the ambitious construction projects of Süleyman the Magnificent, among other things, for running around the middle of the 16th century, extensive restoration work on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, large amounts were needed to tiles and tiles that were predominantly produced in Iznik. Beginning of the 18th Century began the decline of the Ottoman quality ceramic one, which was probably due to, among other things the change in artistic taste and thus the loss of patronage by the manor house: Instead of ceramic wall paneling decorative wood paneling now came increasingly similar to those of the Aleppo Room in fashion.
Collections of Islamic ceramics in Europe
The French expedition to Egypt, the British colonial rule in India and the increasing treatment of the Moorish history of Spain and the romantic rediscovery of the Alhambra as artistic and literary inspiration drew the Islamic ceramics in the 19th century reinforced the European view. In particular, the high quality Iznik pottery was as a sought-after collector's item.
Especially the Frenchman Auguste Salzmann and the British Frederick DuCane Godman and George Salting acquired countless ceramic objects that were later exhibited in public museums such as the Musée national de la Renaissance in Écouen Castle and the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In Germany, in addition to the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, above all, that of the Badische Landesmuseum of great importance. In addition to historical exhibits, it also includes ceramics by contemporary Muslim artists.